


standing on the edge

by zauberer_sirin



Series: Confessions [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Beginnings, Developing Relationship, F/M, Intimacy, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Romance, Self-Doubt, byebyehiatus, taking it slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy has a confession to make. Under the rain.(Written for the #byebyehiatus event at johnsonandcoulson. Prompt: rain kiss)





	standing on the edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



“The medics should probably get a look at it when we get back,” Coulson is saying, after he has finished patching her up, bandaging the injured arm and putting it in a sling. “But I don’t think it’s too serious.”

They are avoiding each other’s gaze and the injury provides a welcome distraction, something to focus on.

It’s not exactly that the mission went wrong, but Daisy found herself dangerous outnumbered. even with her powers… That many people, it would have required her to use them without control, and she can’t do that. She can never lose control again.

Coulson seems relieved that she is okay, distracted from pressing her for an answer about what happened before the mission - about what she thinks about Coulson kissing her out of the blue.

She is not sure what _she_ thinks, so it’s a good thing she doesn’t feel like she has to tell him just yet. Or ever, knowing Coulson.

The Quinjet approaches Washington and Daisy feels anxiety build in her stomach.

“I feel like getting a bit of fresh air first,” she says.

Not ready to go back to a headquarters that had changed so much.

Not ready.

Coulson narrows his eyes at her.

“I know the new Director wants me on a tight leash,” she continues. “But can we make a short stop first?”

Coulson agrees, of course, and asks her where she wants to go. She has no particular predilection and they find one of the few places still open downtown, a huge ice cream shop with one one employee and no customers in sight. Pretty perfect.

She wants something she can eat with just one hand so they order a couple of milkshakes and Coulson waits patiently, sits by her side while Daisy doesn’t feel like talking. He looks a bit miserable with the silence and trying very hard not to let it show, giving her space. Too much space. Historically that’s never a good sign, right?

Maybe he regrets having kissed her, and is happy to never talk about it again.

It’s sad, for some reason, but maybe that’s better. Being back is still too new and Daisy still has the feeling that it’s temporary, that she’ll lose it all again. She didn’t want to get used to Coulson again - to his friendship, to his support. And she shouldn’t make things harder for herself by letting him take even more space in her life. But she was always very bad at not getting attached, especially when she knew it wouldn’t last. Lincoln being an Inhuman like her had made her believe she had more of a chance of finding something permanent there and was part of what had drawn her to the relationship, but that hadn’t worked either. She didn’t want Coulson paying the price for getting too close to her.

She notices he has finished his chocolate-and-strawberry shake (she ordered a classic chocolate one, because she is not a crazy person like him).

“I guess we’d better go back,” Daisy says, not feeling like it.

“Let me pay for these.”

Coulson goes to the counter and pays, giving the young woman behind the register a warm smile and apologizing for coming into the shop so late. The girl tells him that she’d rather have customers at all hours, or else it gets boring and the job seems longer. “I know what you mean,” Coulson says and wishes her a good night. The girl smiles warmly.

Watching the exchange from the outside and Daisy wonders how others see Coulson. _Stop_ she thinks, but what should he stop? He’s the way he is, he’s not doing this to piss her off with his… Coulson-ness.

It’s raining when they get out of the restaurant.

Coulson frowns at the fat, dark clouds above the building.

“We should probably wa-”

But Daisy walks away.

She hates the stupid injury in her arm and the stupid sling. She hates that she was actually scared of dying back there on the mission, and that it was the first time she felt like that in months, since she walked out of SHIELD. It’s not that she didn’t care if she died, while she was on her own, but this kind of fear, she hadn’t felt it in so long she thought she was immune to it. She thought she was immune to so many things. It makes her resent Coulson, she knows he is to blame, that it’s not a coincidence that he tells her he’s… and then she suddenly gets scared of getting killed on the job.

Suddenly it's’ too much, all of it. Being back and the team forgiving her and _this_. Then Coulson did that, told her that. He kissed her first and she always kisses first, she doesn’t know what to do without that measure of control.

So she walks away.

“Hey, Daisy, wait!”

She walks into the rain, and her clothes immediately stick to her skin under the downpour.

Coulson has to struggle a bit to catch up with her and when he does he wraps his right hand around her arm, not too tight, not hard enough that she has to stop, but she does, and turns to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing, I’m just…”

“I’m sorry I confused you,” he says, guilt written over his face. Daisy thought he’d be embarrassed or regretful about it, but he just seems worried that he might have upset her. Was this the reason he didn’t say anything? Because he thought it had made her feel bad?

“No, no,” Daisy tells him, her annoyance and resentment disappearing as soon as she looks at him. “I’m confused, but never about you.”

Coulson tilts his head questioningly. Good to know he is a bit aware of the unconventional nature of their relationship. Good to know it’s confused him too.

They are so close, they have unwittingly drawn closer because it’s so cold out here, Daisy can see their own breaths.

“No, I mean, it’s confusing but I’m never confused about it being a good thing.”

His frown softens and he smiles a bit, like he is immensely touched, and Daisy realizes she is telling the truth. She might not exactly know what Coulson is to her, or not always (he’s tried to be many things, she knows he’s tried - no one else has tried so much for her), but she is always happy _he is_.

The way they are standing right now, under the rain, so close, it makes her remember the kiss. It was mere hours ago, but it feels like a lifetime has happened in between. It was barely a kiss, he touched her so lightly. It starts to feel like she imagined it (it’s Coulson, he would never do something like that), and she almost feels tempted to kiss him herself to check it was real. And something about the way Coulson is slightly leaning (okay, she is doing that too) and looking at her face, her mouth. She feels a pull, that is both new and not unfamiliar. Part of the pull is that she can feel the heat coming from his body, and it must feel so nice, under this falling water, and the way drops gather on Coulson’s long, pretty eyelashes for a moment before sliding down his cheeks...

“You know what’s like, being loved by you?” she tells him, knowing she is awful at this, knowing she has never had to confess to anyone before. “It’s like standing on the edge, but instead of wanting to jump, like I always do, I want to turn around and run and find a safe place.” Coulson’s eyes narrow a bit, and he’s obviously misunderstood her stupid metaphor. “No,” she says. “I mean…” She presses her uninjured hand to his chest, flattening it against the wet fabric of his black shirt. “ _You are_ that safe place I want to run to.”

Coulson slides his fingers across her cheek and Daisy thinks he is going to caress her face like he did on the Quinjet but he doesn’t. He grabs her and pulls her against him, closing his mouth over hers confidently.

It’s so different from the way he kissed her on the Quinjet. She likes the way he holds her face with both his hands while he kisses her, like they do in old movies.

Their faces are so cold even pressed together, and Daisy is afraid of laughing and ruining it when she kisses him back. It’s messy, their faces slippery, their lips trembling, and drops of water getting everywhere, but Daisy feels her whole body coming alive as Coulson slides his tongue inside her mouth.

She breaks the kiss and sighs and presses her forehead against Coulson’s mouth, wishing he would just hug her or something that would make her stay still, that would make her stay. She shakes her head slowly, wondering in which way she’ll ruin this too, immediately.

She lifts her gaze to find Coulson’s, still pressing the palm of her hands against his chest. The rain is seeping through, and she can perfectly feel his racing heartbeat thudding under her fingers, like a caged animal, fluttering wings. He has been very careful not to touch her anywhere but her hair, her cheeks, the back of her nape, as he was kissing her.

“Don’t let me crack a stupid joke, or run away, or push you away…” she says, dropping her head again. When did she learn how to do that, ruin a good thing before it could be taken away from her? “Like I always do.”

Coulson runs cold fingers through her hair and looks at her like no one else ever has.

“That’s fine, all of those things are fine,” he says. “If you don’t want to…” he trails off, trying to swallow the possibility of disappointment and Daisy can’t help but enjoy that little shimmer of despair. “No one knows better than you what you nee-…”

Now it’s _pouring_ and Coulson shakes his head, frustrated at all the water getting into his mouth and making difficult to either gather his thoughts or put them into words correctly. Daisy smiles a bit at his look of annoyance.

“Can we get out of the rain for a moment?” he asks her. “Please?”

She nods and takes his hand in hers without thinking, only vaguely noticing that it feels different because it’s his prosthetic.

They go back under the refuge of the ice cream shop’s front, standing a bit awkwardly after making out on the street. Daisy smiles to herself a bit, because it was weird but easy. It had never been easy before: she had dated people online for years, she never had to make that jump face to face, their _romances_ limited to chats and webcams and Daisy liked it that way, after how she had grown up; with Miles she had been trying to impress him, she remembers that, had pretended to be drunker than she was so if he rejected him she could play it off as some kind of drunken joke; she’d rather not think about Ward but she remembers she felt pity; what she remembers most about Lincoln is how desperate she was for him to let her help him, to keep him safe, more than the kiss itself. 

“I have a house, not far from here,” Coulson says, looking at the sky as the rain gets worse. “It’s safe. We should probably dry up a bit.”

Daisy freezes, as the idea of spending the night with Coulson fills her with as much anticipation as it feels her with doubt.

But it’s too awkward to reject him. She doesn’t think she’s rejected anyone in her life. She bites the inside of her cheek and takes a step back, knowing that will draw Coulson’s attention and he’ll look at her.

“I’m… I don’t think I’m ready to-”

His confident smile stops whatever she is about to say.

“Relax,” he tells her. “I _only_ offered my couch. Maybe a cup of hot coffee if you get lucky.”

Daisy feels her cheeks and the tips of her ears heat up with embarrassment.

But it feels good, that he wasn’t proposing that, so she wasn’t really rejecting him. And Coulson looks at her with soft eyes, like a cup of hot coffee is her sounds like the most exciting plan in the world.

 

+

 

His safe house (because that’s what it is, more than a real home; he’s legally a dead man, after all) is spare but he has plenty of first aid supplies and Daisy is able to change the bandage on her arm with his help.

He has some clothes she can change into, too, a white t-shirt and some sweatpants with drawstrings she could fit into. She realizes she’s shivering when she puts on the dry clothes and suddenly is very grateful for them. Coulson was right. They had to get out of the rain. And he hadn’t suggested they’d come back to the base, filling Daisy with relief.

“I don’t have milk, obviously,” he tells her, sitting her on the kitchen.

“Black coffee is fine.”

After he makes it they sit on the kitchen and it’s a bit like back in the ice cream place, except less miserable. Awkward, but definitely less miserable.

Daisy takes a moment to look at Coulson. His hair is still wet despite the fact that he toweled it and the way strands of it stick to his forehead makes him look a bit younger. The age difference between them is probably technically insurmountable but not as much as the fact that he is human and Daisy isn’t. She likes his eyes though. He is handsome, in his own way, she has just never thought about it. Not her usual type, but look what good her usual type had done her. Coulson is such a great guy and so precious to her, that stuff like whether she finds him handsome or not seems irrelevant. Plus he is a great kisser. That’s good. They’re not hopeless.

She also likes the way he looks at her all serious and careful, like he is doing now.

“The base… it’s still your home,” he tells her. 

Daisy is relieved she doesn’t have to spell out her reasons, earlier, for not wanting to come back.

“I know, and everyone has been great,” she hurries to say, because she feels in debt to the team. She walked away and no one seems to be holding it against her. “But… it just doesn’t feel like home yet.”

Coulson nods. “That’s natural. Don’t push yourself, take your time.”

Daisy smiles. Ah, there it is. That’s what makes him handsome _to her_. He seems a bit embarrassed by her smile (she is definitely staring now) and he takes another sip of coffee to hide behind the mug. 

“Sorry it’s not too great,” he says, about the coffee.

“I’ve had worse,” Daisy tells him. One day she’ll tell him all about her adventures going rogue, sleeping in cars and avoiding security cameras for months. But it’s still too tangled up with painful memories to make for good anecdotes. Some day. “Do all the mugs you own have the SHIELD symbol though? It’s kind of a giveaway.”

“Just this one,” he says. “When the new Director took over my office I had to move all my possessions out, quickly.”

“I’m sorry you are not Director anymore,” she says, knowing it has everything to do with her, not knowing how to apologize for so many things.

“Don’t be,” Coulson tells her. “I’m not.”

It makes sense, she never believed he liked being Director, but he never talked openly about his doubts with her before. There are many things they did not talk about, actually.

He reaches out to take her hand across the table and Daisy is once again out of her depth, wrong-footed because she is not the one making the moves, staying in control.

“Is this okay?” Coulson asks.

She nods and he slowly draws his thumb across her knuckle. It feels so nice. The kiss wasn’t a fluke, obviously. She really is attracted to him. She takes a long breath.

“Coulson…” she starts but something isn’t right. “Wait. Do I call you Phil now?”

“If you want.”

“Phil. Was… was that a date?”

“We had milkshakes and kissed. According to _my mom_ that’s the only definition of date,” he says. Daisy chuckles. He seems delighted by the development.

“So by 1950s standards we’ve just had a date, uh.”

She doesn’t tell him how long it’s been since she had a date. 

“And by your standards?” he asks.

“It’s been a while,” Daisy admits.

He recoils. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

She shakes her head. Experimentally she moves her chair closer to Coulson, so that her knees are between his legs but not touching them. Daisy decides it’s her turn to confess with something more than words and she presses her lips against his mouth. He still tastes a bit like rain, or maybe she does. And who can tell what rain tastes like anyway? For Daisy rain tastes like a city, like a dark shade of blue, like tall buildings. And now like Phil Coulson. He tastes mostly like coffee now, and their lips are warm from the liquid. It feels more like a kiss now. Coulson stands still, letting her get comfortable before he starts kissing back.

They spend several minutes like that, kissing, getting used to one another, not touching anywhere else. Desire tugs at Daisy like warmth spreading all over her, tempting her to go further, but she knows she is not ready, and for once she is okay with letting her partner know that. She has never set the pace before - not truly. 

When she breaks it again Coulson lifts his hand and starts stroking her arm up and down. Then he hugs her, careful not to move her injured arm, and Daisy tucks her head under his chin for a moment, pressing her face against his neck. She notices he smells different to any other guy she’s ever been this close to. It might be the age thing, she thinks. He’s not a big guy, but she finds that she seems to fit against him just as well as if he were.

“You should probably get some rest,” he says, gently pulling her from out of his own embrace. “You’ve had a long day.”

“And you’ve made it longer,” she teases.

“Yeah,” Coulson says, like doesn’t know how to react. “I’ll get you some painkillers first.”

She ends up taking the bed and Coulson the couch, as she knew would happen. She is the one injured in combat, after all.

At first she’s sure that she won’t be able to sleep from all the excitement - and the lingering doubts and fear, but mainly the excitement, like an idiot teenager - but as soon as she rests her head on the nice, soft pillow (Coulson holds on to certain little luxuries, despite all the sacrifices, and boy does Daisy get that - she used to do the same, save for unnecessarily awesome sheets and clothes even when she was living in her van, because it made her feel a bit better) Daisy drifts into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

 

+

 

When she wakes up she not disoriented. She is at Coulson’s place and it’s not as weird as she might have imagined, that feeling. She can tell it’s early - not too early, though, she caught a few good hours of sleep. The air still smells of last night’s rain, despite the fact that Daisy can tell it’s a clear day from the light coming through the window.

She sits up and listens to the noise of early traffic. The oversized clothes are comfortable and her arm doesn’t hurt too bad and she can’t think of the last time she had a moment for herself like this. She has stuff going on in her head, of course, but it’s like someone pressed pause on everything. She is almost content. She didn’t think she could ever feel that way, not after Hive. Happiness scares her, she didn’t tell Coulson this was the reason she was so hesitant about him, because he makes her happy, she makes her feel like she has a place in the world, and those were things that she felt, in their purest form, with Hive. Daisy doesn’t think she can talk to Coulson about this.

For a moment she pretends this is something normal, that she is wearing a boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s t-shirt and that she is a normal person who can have relationships with people she loves and who love her in return.

After a few minutes she hears Coulson moving around the kitchen. She is not sure what to do.

“Coulson!” she calls. “It’s okay, I’m awake, you can come in.”

For a moment everything becomes quiet - she can perfectly picture Coulson freezing on the spot. Then she hears steps towards the bedroom. Daisy almost laughs at his just-woke-up look, his narrow sleepy eyes; he’s not looking like a hardened SHIELD agent very much like that. She is half-disappointed he is not in his underwear (hey, she might be happy to be taking it slow but that doesn’t mean she can’t fantasize). She wonders if he slept with the prosthetic on or if he put on again when he woke up.

“Sorry,” Coulson says and she wonder what on earth he is apologizing for this early in the morning. He gestures towards the door next to her. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh, right.”

It’s the only bathroom in the house and he would have had to go through the bedroom. She gets it.

“I didn’t want to just go while you were asleep, it would have been-”

“Creepy?”

“Umm, very much,” he says and goes inside the bathroom.

Moments later Daisy chuckles to herself because she can hear him pee. It’s no big deal, she used to share a bathroom with thirteen other girls. Still, it’s funny. It’s the former Director of SHIELD, Phil Coulson, super spy, peeing in the next room.

When he comes back (after flushing _and washing his hands_ , Daisy notes happily) he gives her an odd, shy look and he bends down to kiss her cheek, whispering “Good morning” and sitting by her side on the bed.

Well, that was nice.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, a little too attentive. Daisy honestly doesn’t mind that he tries too hard. It’s a nice change. “Does your arm hurt?”

“Not too much,” Daisy replies.

“Good.”

“I thought you were going to make me breakfast or some romantic gesture,” she teases.

“I don’t have any food in this apartment,” he explains.

“You could have gone to the shops while I slept.”

Coulson drops his gaze for a second, as his left hand fidgets over the blanket. She guesses he takes his robot hand off when he goes to bed, because it looks like he is checking the connections are working properly. It makes Daisy’s stomach drop with guilt, just remembering why he lost his hand in the first place.

Then he looks up and wraps his fingers gently around the back of her neck and pulling her to him. He gives her a chaste, close-mouthed kiss on the lips before letting her go and answering.

“I thought about going to buy breakfast, but I didn’t want to left you alone.”

Daisy raises an eyebrow. “You could have left a note.”

“Yeah but I didn’t like it, the idea of you waking up in an empty apartment…”

He’s thinking about all those months Daisy spent alone and once more, as it has often happened since they met, she is taken by surprise by his consideration. Or just the fact that he was able to make the connection in the first place. She has never met anyone who paid that kind of attention.

“It’s okay, we can stop somewhere before going back to headquarters,” she tells him.

Coulson studies her face.

“Are you sure?”

She reaches her good hand to stroke his arm, trying to copy his gesture from last night

She nods. 

“I’m ready.”.


End file.
